Chapter 02 · Nature, land & waterBiodiversity & Nature
Adaptive management
Definition
Natural resource management conducted in a way that purposely and explicitly increases knowledge and reduces uncertainty. Developed by C.S. Holling and Carl Walters in the 1970s (originally "adaptive environmental assessment and management"), it treats management interventions as experiments whose outcomes are monitored and used to revise subsequent action.
References
Definition as management that increases knowledge and reduces uncertainty; Holling (1978) and Walters (1986) origins; hypothesis-testing link.
1970s IIASA origins; interdisciplinary foundations; action under scientific uncertainty rather than postponement.
Overview
What it means
Adaptive management emerged from the recognition that ecosystems do not predictably return to equilibrium after disturbance, and that management must proceed despite incomplete knowledge. Its cycle links assessment, modelling and management experimentation, with formal hypothesis testing and a role for stakeholder participation — reversing traditional top-down, control-based management.
How it is used
The approach is applied in fisheries, forestry, water resources, protected-area management and ecosystem restoration, and increasingly in conservation programmes and development aid that require flexibility under uncertainty. Typical practice involves agreeing goals and assumptions, acting, monitoring indicators, reviewing results with stakeholders, and adjusting plans.
Why it matters
Ecosystems managed under climate change face novel, shifting conditions for which fixed plans fail. Adaptive management offers the dominant institutionalised method for acting while learning — though reviews find it is often invoked loosely, without genuine experimentation or feedback loops.
Definitions and controversy
Scholars distinguish "true" adaptive management (structured experimentation) from loose "learning by doing"; much practice labelled adaptive management lacks the formal monitoring and hypothesis-testing core.